Knowledge workers are the valuable asset of the company and their management is known as knowledge management. They contribute towards improved productivity and management that leads to success of the organization therefore their role is very important and new organizations should implement it in their culture. There is no limit or boundaries to acquire knowledge or to explore it and knowledge management is one of its kinds. The interview with Karl-Erik Sveiby indicates his familiarization with this concept and his role in the promotion of knowledge management.
Karl came across this term when he started working in his own publishing company. It was at this time that his urge to know more about the term knowledge management developed when he saw knowledge workers in his own company. It is a knowledge based strategy some what close to the concept of learning organization. , it improves the functioning of the business therefore it is also known as the competence based strategy. Karl’s interest in it grew over the years especially in the 1990’s as he had passion for creativity and creating value at work through people and environment, moreover the trend was changing from IT towards the people.
His urge for tacit knowledge has led him to work on aboriginal knowledge creation for the time being. He believed computers can also play a role in this work as well through the development of tools that contribute towards creativity such as simulations and educational tools. Knowledge management helps in formulating strategies, development of tools and engagement of people into work. Karl has been inspired by new ideas through interaction with the people around him apart from the formal network of people which is a usual way and various thought leaders too such as Marshall McLuhan.
The Essay on The Importance of Knowledge Management (KM) in Business
Starting from the late 90's, enterprises started to talk about "Knowledge Management (KM)" as they have figured out that without proper KM strategies, it will cause problem and inefficiency in the organization. For example, loss of important information when there is someone leaving the company or it takes a long time to retrieve certain piece of data from a large pile of files. Therefore, ...
He wrote a book named Invisible balance sheet in the year 1989 which got overwhelming response from people who imitated it and used it as their work but a lot of people don’t know that Karl was the original source of these new ideas introduced such as four power players and intangible resources like customer capital, structural capital, and human capital. He believed in sharing the knowledge in humanity and has given access to his work online free of charge to download for everyone including his books, he has got a lot of appreciation from the people for his work and ideas though there are people who have copied his work.
Karl has got intangible value in return as a reward of working with gifted people for the benefit of everyone and he is satisfied with this opportunity to learn as a reward. These tools and ideas are to be used to improve people and their thinking. Organizations should implement this in their work to make it a better place. Knowledge and technology should be used to have better control over people rather than it taking over people completely.
People exploit the concepts by copying them for their own benefit rather than humanity. Finland is one of the countries which is working on knowledge based policies far ahead than any other country and has embraced it but yet again it needs to be done widely in order to see results. This concept does not change any organization, it depends on the top management that they realize its potential and ingrain in into the business in order to use knowledge as a tool for better management of resources and the organization as a whole.
